Van Gaal surprised with inter milan performance

Bayern Munich coach Louis
van Gaal admitted he was
surprised by Inter Milan's
attacking style as his side
snatched a crucial 1-0
victory at the San Siro.
Mario Gomez scored the only
goal of the game in the last
minute after Inter's Brazilian
goalkeeper Julio Cesar had
failed to hold Arjen Robben's
stinging shot.
It was sweet revenge for the
Germans after their defeat to
Inter in the final in Madrid
nine months ago and Van
Gaal insisted they were clear
favourites to progress
following the second leg in
Munich in three weeks time.
But having claimed before
the game that Inter's style
had not changed since that
final in May, where Jose
Mourinho's side proved
effective on the counter-
attack, Van Gaal admitted he
was surprised at the Italians.
"I was very surprised by
Inter's performance, they
wanted to win the game," he
said.
"It was a very good game,
very attractive and
everyone can be happy with
the game, it was fun. It must
have pleased everyone who
watched it.
"Of course we have a better
chance of progressing now
because we scored an away
goal but Inter have a lot of
quality and they could also
score in Munich.
"They have a good team and
although we dominated the
second half, in the last 10
minutes they created many
chances and that's a sign of
quality.
"We were lucky to score in
the last minute but then
again we could have scored
before that.
"In the final Inter were less
attacking but the result was
different and here it was
better for us.
"But this is football. In the
final we had 65 percent of
possession and here we had
only 55 percent, which is 10
percent less.
"We created less chances
than in the final and they
created eight chances here
and only five in the final, but
they scored from two of
those five."
"We can be very contented
with our performance, it was
a good game, Inter played
well.
"I have to say there could
have been a different result
but given that we were
playing away and the way we
dominated the second half,
then we deserved to win."
Bayern goalkeeper Thomas
Kraft made a number of
crucial saves from Samuel
Eto'o and Houssine Kharja
most notably and Van Gaal
paid tribute to his shot-
stopper.
"He's a player in my team, he
showed his qualities, he has
amazing reflexes and he's
very important to us.
"But we created many more
chances than Inter." Inter
coach Leonardo insisted that
his side are still well in this
tie.
"I believe and that's not just
me being optimistic but
becauses of the desire that
we showed despite having
changed our system, we still
played very well," he said.
"There's very little
difference between winning
1-0, drawing 0-0 and losing
1-0.
"We need to play in a way
that shows we must win in
Munich but I don't see
anything extraordinary in
that."
Leonardo started the game
with Eto'o as a lone striker
whereas he has previously
played with either two or
three up front.
But he denied that he had
hampered the team's
attacking potential by not
pushing enough men forward.
"There are always different
options but you try to make
decisons based on the
players you have," he said.
"Of course we played a
different system than before
but there were a variety of
reasons for that, one being
that we only had two
forwards, the other being
Goran Pandev (who didn't
play).
"But you didn't see a lack of
attacking or creating
chances, we created a lot of
chances.
"Bayern had more of the ball
but we were dangerous in
this game and tried to create
chances.
"We created five chances
and they were clearer than
the three they created, even
though their general play
was very good